CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY REMAINS PROBLEMATIC IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 001427 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR DRL/IRF (COFSKY) NSC STAFF FOR WATERS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/15/2017 TAGS: PHUM PGOV KIRF EG SUBJECT: CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY REMAINS PROBLEMATIC IN EGYPT REF: 2006 CAIRO 4259 Classified by ECPO Minister Counselor William R. Stewart for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Conversion to Christianity, or any faith other than Islam, remains an intensely problematic issue in Egypt, despite constitutional protection of the principle of freedom of religion. An April 24 court decision against the right of 45 Muslim citizens (who were born Christians) to re-convert to Christianity has underscored how Egypt's bureaucratic and legal structures fail to provide full protection to freedom of religion. The April 28 release of a Muslim-born convert to Christianity, after two years imprisonment without charge, is welcome news, but also serves as a reminder that choices of personal faith in Egypt can sometimes incur the intense scrutiny and interference of the security services. End summary. -------------- April 24 Court Ruling on Conversion -------------- ¶2. (SBU) The April 24 decision by Court of Administrative Justice found that the Interior Ministry is not obligated to recognize the return to Christianity by 45 citizens who had converted to Islam, even if they were able to produce evidence (such as a birth certificate) of their original affiliation with Christianity. The April 24 decision stated that allowing Christian-born Muslims to reconvert to Christianity would violate the prohibition against apostasy under Islamic law and would constitute a "manipulation of Islam and Muslims." (Note: The same court had previously ruled in at least 22 cases between 2004 and 2006 (under a different judge, NOW retired) that the GOE should not interfere or coerce citizens to adopt a certain faith or religion against their wishes. End note.) ¶3. (SBU) Christian lawyer Naguib Gabriel has filed an appeal against the April 24 decision. It is not clear how long the appeals process will take. The apparent regression represented by the April 24 decision is part of a larger problem in Egypt in which various GOE regulations and bureaucratic procedures, as well as deep rooted discrimination and bias, work to undermine the explicit protection of religious freedom in the Egyptian constitution (article 46),which states that, "The State shall guarantee the freedom of belief and freedom of practicing religious rites." In addition to the problems faced by Muslims of Christian origin who wish to re-convert to Christianity, Muslim-born citizens, as well as Baha'is, face a range of societal and institutional discrimination which have been documented in the Department's International Religious Freedom Report. (Note: By contrast, conversion from Christianity to Islam for adult citizens is generally a simple and routine process. There are no reliable estimates of the number of citizens converting from Christianity to Islam and vice-versa. Our various contacts offer estimates ranging from dozens per year to several thousand. End note.) -------------- - Release of Muslim-born Convert to Christianity -------------- - ¶4. (C) In a separate event, the GOE's April 28 release of Bahaa Al-Accad, a Muslim-born convert to Christianity who had spent two years in detention without charge or trial, provided welcome relief to Accad, his family, and his lawyers, but it does not appear to signal any substantive change in GOE policy towards Muslim-born converts to Christianity. (Note: The Department's 2006 Human Rights Report and Religious Freedom Report have devoted coverage to Accad's case. The only apparent cause of his detention was his public affirmation of his conversion from Islam to Christianity. In addition to prominent reference to Accad in the Department's published human rights reports, emboffs have also raised Accad's case on multiple occasions with interlocutors in the MFA's human rights department. Reftel also discussed Accad's case, and several other cases of Muslim-born converts to Christianity. End note.) ¶5. (C) The GOE did not explain why it granted Accad his freedom, after two years of detention. Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights CAIRO 00001427 002 OF 002 (EIPR),a leading Cairo-based human rights group which has been quietly working on Accad's behalf, told poloff that he believes the GOE may have acted NOW to forestall negative attention to the case that might have been generated by a pending hearing before the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) in the Gambia. Exploiting an opportunity presented by Egypt's AU membership, and its subsequent signature of AU human rights conventions, Bahgat and EIPR have been able to bring several human rights and religious freedom cases against the GOE at the ACHPR. In the 2003-6 case of Metwalli Ibrahim Saleh, an Azhar scholar detained by the GOE for his heterodox views on Islam, EIPR filed a case with the ACHPR in 2005, calling upon the GOE to respect the eight Egyptian judicial rulings that had ordered Metwalli's release. In April 2006, several weeks before the ACHPR was due to formally begin hearings in the Metwalli case, the GOE released Metwalli. Similarly, in the Accad case, the ACHPR had agreed to hear EIPR's complaint against the GOE later this month. Bahgat opined that the GOE may have chosen to release Accad in an effort to avoid risking a formal rebuke by the ACHPR, and resultant bad publicity. ¶6. (C) In a brief May 14 meeting, Accad expressed his deep gratitude for USG attention to his case, and expressed his desire to leave Egypt, if possible. He also reported that he remains concerned about his personal security. According to Accad, he fears that unnamed extremist Muslims, possibly acting on information provided by Egyptian security officials, may seek to harm him. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶7. (C) Despite Egypt's constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion under article 46, and despite recent constitutional amendments to articles one and five, which made "citizenship" the basis for participation in political life and which outlawed political parties or activities based on religion, religious freedom, and particularly conversion away from Islam, remain intensely problematic in Egypt. In part, this is due to legal and bureaucratic contradictions. A complicating factor is that article two of the constitution states that Islamic law forms the basis for legislation. When combined with both the long-standing and newly evolving biases and tensions that characterize much of Egyptian society, the result is a system that provides only inadequate protections to religious freedom. RICCIARDONE